UK government appoints world’s first minister for suicide prevention, and Taylor Swift’s appeal ‘boosts voter registration in US’.
Kavanaugh is first US Supreme Court judge with all-women clerk team
Controversial US Supreme Court judge Brett Kavanaugh, who got the job last week after a fierce firestorm surrounding a three-decade old allegation of sexual assault, has hired an all-female contingent of clerks, reports Daily Mail.
Kavanaugh is the first US justice to have an all-female team of clerks.
During Kavanaugh’s stint at a lower court, around 25 of 48 law clerks were women.
US-China trade war will hit both economies hard in 2019, IMF warns
The US-China trade war will take a toll on both economies next year, the International Monetary Fund warned Tuesday, CNN reported.
The international organisation has cut growth projections for both countries on account of their tariff war, which is only likely to intensify in the coming days. “When you have the world’s two largest economies at odds, that’s a situation where everyone suffers,” IMF chief economist Maurice Obstfeld said.
While the US showed a healthy momentum in the economy this year, the trade differences with China have led IMF experts to predict a slowdown of growth by 0.2 percentage points — from 2.9 per cent this year to a 2.4 per cent next year. China’s growth is also expected to fall from 6.6 per cent this year to 6.2 per cent in 2019.
Theresa May appoints world’s first minister for suicide prevention
UK Prime Minister Theresa May has appointed a minister for suicide prevention, a first for the world, The Independent reported.
May has announced that health minister Jackie Doyle-Price will also lead efforts to end the stigma that prevents people from seeking mental health counselling.
In England, the suicide rate for teenagers rose by 67 per cent between 2010 and 2017, with an estimated 4,500 people taking their own lives every year in England.
“We can end the stigma that has forced too many to suffer in silence. We can prevent the tragedy of suicide taking too many lives,” May said at a reception in London ahead of the World Mental Health Day, which is observed on 10 October.
She also pledged £1.8 million to ensure a helpline offering emotional support remains free for the next four years.
Nigerian activist in race to be nation’s first woman president
Former Nigerian cabinet minister and senior World Bank official Obiageli Ezekwesili aims to become Nigeria’s first woman president, Reuters reports.
Ezekwesili said she wanted to mobilise first-time voters who often felt discouraged from going to the polling booths due to the long domination of the country’s two main parties — the All Progressives Congress and the People’s Democratic Party — which have held power since the advent of civilian rule in 1999.
“I am now fed up, like most Nigerians are, with the status quo and so we want to disrupt our political landscape,” Ezekwesili, the co-founder of a group to raise awareness about the abducted ‘Chibok schoolgirls’, told Reuters.
The 55-year-old announced Sunday that she would run as the candidate of the Allied Congress Party of Nigeria (ACPN) in the February 2019 Nigerian presidential elections.
She will be up against current president Muhammadu Buhari, a former military ruler, and former vice-president Atiku Abubakar, who represents the main opposition People’s Democratic Party.
Popstar Taylor Swift’s push ‘stokes voter registration for US midterm polls’
Voter registration for the US midterm elections this November have reportedly shown a significant increase after popstar Taylor Swift encouraged fans to do so, Vote.org, an online voter’s guide in the US, told Buzzfeed.